They are safe away, in calm good spirits. I’ll be by to walk home with you at six.
Anna let out the breath she had been holding for what seemed like hours. It was done, then. Cap was gone, and she would never see him again. What an odd idea, really, to know that someone so very necessary in your life was lost to you and couldn’t be called back. Of all the people she had lost, Cap would be the first since she gained adulthood. She reminded herself that there would be letters, but then thought that it would almost be like communicating with someone from beyond the grave.
How Cap would laugh to know she was thinking like the spiritualists whose tappings and whispering she truly abhorred. She could almost hear him. In mock solemnity he would promise that when he passed on, his first project would be to learn Morse code so he could really communicate, none of this silly one tap for yes, two for no. He would provide a travelogue, of sorts, from the other side.
She would miss him for the rest of her life.
Tonight she would write a letter of her own, one that would be waiting when they got to Switzerland if she sent it express. It would be worth the cost to think of Sophie reading it out loud while they sat on a veranda overlooking the mountains that were glacier bound all through the year. That was the picture she would hold on to.
Another knock at the door jarred her out of her thoughts, this one almost timid. Irritated, she got up and went to open it, ready to speak her mind, and very plainly.
The young woman standing there was a stranger: she carried a valise in each hand and wore an old-fashioned skirt and jacket, much mended at the hems and far too large. Anna had little sense of fashions in color, but even she knew that a true redhead—as this young woman was, her mop of thick hair shorn short—could not wear a green and brown dress. Only the sharp angles of cheekbones and jaw saved her from looking like a tomato coming into full ripeness on the vine.
The young woman’s expression, open and hopeful, gave way to something like sadness. She said, “You don’t recognize me.”
It was the voice that made the difference. Anna stepped backward in her surprise. “Sister Mary Augustin?”
“Elise Mercier,” said the young woman who was, apparently, no longer a nun. “Might I please come in?”
? ? ?
ANNA TRIED NOT to stare and failed.
“To say I’m taken aback would be an understatement. I thought you had gone away for good. That’s the impression I was given.”
An honest smile replaced the uncertainty. “You asked about me?”
“Well, yes. Was that a mistake? Did my letter cause you problems of some kind?”
“Oh, no,” said Elise Mercier. “I’m glad to hear it. I thought maybe you’d just turn me away.”
“You have to start from the beginning and tell me about—this change in your circumstances.”
“It’s not very complicated,” she began.
And it seemed she was right. Elise Mercier, was, after all, still the young woman Anna had liked for her simple ability to express herself, for her intelligence and curiosity. With no fanfare she explained she had come to question her calling to the religious life, primarily because she could not push away the bone-deep itch to study medicine. She went to her superiors with these doubts, and in response they had sent her back to the Mother House where she could contemplate in solitude. Not a punishment, she added quickly. Just the opposite; the sisters had encouraged her to consider all the consequences of her choice. She could be a servant of God, nun or layperson.
“I decided to leave the order,” she ended. After a moment she added: “It was the right decision, I knew immediately. Like suddenly putting down a burden. The sisters gave me their blessing and these clothes—” She looked down at herself and grimaced.
Anna bit back a smile.
“I know, it’s awful. But there wasn’t much choice.”
“If you have no clothes, what’s in your bags?”
Elise blinked. “Some books and my notes.”
“From your studies?”
“I’ve kept a journal or a daybook, I suppose you’d call it, since I began training as a nurse. There wasn’t really anyone to talk to about the details of the cases I saw, so it seemed important to at least record my observations and the questions that couldn’t be answered. It’s very odd of me, I’m sure.”
“Just the opposite,” Anna said. “It bodes well for your education. So the sisters just—waved good-bye?”
“They gave me train fare and arranged a ride to the station. I’m embarrassed to say that they thought I was going to go home to my family and I didn’t correct them. I took the first train into the city. I had just arrived when it occurred to me that I should have written to ask first. You might have changed your mind.”